Colleen Atwood Accepts Disney Legend Award: Watch

Famed costumer Colleen Atwood is officially a Disney Legend!

On Sunday (August 11), the 2024 Disney Legend awards ceremony took place at the Honda Center. This was during the bi-annual D23 Expo in Anaheim, Calif.

Collen Atwood’s Life Achievements and Disney Legend Status

For Colleen Atwood, designing costumes for movies both fantastical and fabulous is like crafting her own Wonderland. This prolific costume designer has been nominated for an Academy Award® a dozen times and has won four Oscars®, including one for her visually stunning work in Alice in Wonderland (2010). Born in Ellensburg, Washington, Colleen briefly studied painting at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. Her keen sense of visual style, honed through her experience in high fashion retail at designer boutiques, led to her start as a fashion advisor. This background opened the door for Colleen to become a production assistant in the art department on Ragtime (1981).

While in New York, she aligned with many filmmakers, including Jonathan Demme, Michael Apted, and Michael Mann. Her introduction to filmmaker Tim Burton marked the beginning of a long-standing creative partnership, making her Burton’s go-to costume designer. Their first collaboration, Edward Scissorhands, kicked off a series of 12 Burton films she designed costumes for, including Disney’s live-action reimaginings of Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dumbo (2019). The upcoming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024) will be their 13th collaboration. Colleen has costumed over 50 films and TV series, many of which feature visually stunning, imaginary environments. Her ability to blend genres in her approach to character costuming has allowed her to create designs for fantastic films. This included, Planet of the Apes (2001), Into the Woods (2014), Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), Lady and the Tramp (2019), and The Little Mermaid (2023).